Covering third parties and independent candidates since 2008

Three Idaho U.S. Senate candidates asked to quit by GOP

Three alternative candidates for the U.S. Senate in Idaho “were contacted by Republicans including Congressman Bill Sali, urging them to exit the race to help Republican Jim Risch,” the AP reports. Libertarian Kent Marmon, independent Rex Rammell, and independent Pro-Life (formerly Marvin Richardson) “all say they were asked to make an early exit.”

Marmon said Sali “urged him to leave because he could draw votes from Risch” and help Democrat Larry LaRocco. A Sali spokesman confirmed the reports, saying the calls were “political, nothing personal.” LaRocco “says the GOP ‘power elite’ is trying to manipulate the Nov. 4 election.” Polls including Rammell but not Marmon or Pro-Life have shown Rammell winning three to six percent support.

(An earlier version of this item listed Pro-Life as the Constitution Party nominee, as the AP article designates him. He is not the candidate of that party any longer.)

What I don’t understand is why we tolerate this sort of behavior. Why is this not criminal? If I go to a competitor and tell them to leave my “territory” alone I go to jail for collusion and attempting to manipulate the market, no? If Coke tried to do this to RC Cola, someone would be under the jail house it seems to me, but because this is the marketplace of ideas and democracy we allow these forces to manipulate and corrupt freely while hiding behind “free speech” or “corporate personhood” at the least.

It’s disgusting. Any Green who tried to pull crap like this would face a very angry party rank-and-file, and I don’t understand why rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans don’t raise hell at the way their leaders are corrupting what is the only thing that really offers us a chance to think of America as great: our values and Constitution.